This invention relates to a video recording/reproducing apparatus and more specifically, to a video recording/reproducing apparatus for recording and reproducing television broadcasting signals and distinguishing commercial message portions and program content portions in a broadcasting program.
A video recording/reproducing apparatus is known which distinguishes commercial message portions from program content portions from television broadcasting signals when the television broadcasting signals are recorded, and records the program content portions by omitting the commercial message portions. Video recording/reproducing apparatuses of this kind include a bilingual broadcasting mode judgement system described in JP-A-3-158086 and a stereophonic broadcasting mode judgement system described in JP-A-3-262287, for example.
Since the commercial messages are broadcasted by the stereophonic broadcasting in the system described in JP-A-3-158086, this system judges the bilingual broadcasting mode contained in audio signals of television broadcasting, distinguishes the program content portions of the bilingual broadcasting mode from the commercial message portions of the stereophonic broadcasting mode, automatically omits only the commercial message (CM) portions and records the program content portions of the bilingual broadcasting mode.
On the other hand, the system described in JP-A-3-262287 judges the stereophonic broadcasting mode contained in the audio signals of television broadcasting, distinguishes the program content portions of the stereophonic broadcasting mode from the commercial message portions of the monaural broadcasting mode, automatically omits only the commercial message portions and records the program content portions of the stereophonic broadcasting mode.
In the systems according to the prior art described above, however, automatic omission of the CM portions cannot be effected in the bilingual broadcasting mode judgement system when the program content portions are the monaural broadcasting program and the stereophonic broadcasting program. In the stereophonic broadcasting mode judgement system, the CM is originally based on the assumption that it is broadcasted by monaural broadcasting. Therefore, if the CM itself is broadcasted by stereophonic broadcasting, it cannot be distinguished from the stereophonic broadcasting programs.
Therefore, the conventional systems intend to distinguish two kinds of program contents from the difference of the broadcasting modes of bilingual broadcasting, monaural broadcasting and stereophonic broadcasting. For this reason, when the program content portions and the commercial message portions have the same broadcasting mode, they cannot be distinguished from one another.
Particularly recently, bilingual broadcasting and stereophonic broadcasting have been employed for the program content portions, too, not only for picture programs but also for ordinary programs such as music programs, sports programs, drama programs, and so forth. Therefore, the possibility drops that the prior art system can omit only the commercial message portions, and these systems have become of no practical use.